Amid a trailer highlighting the indie powerhouses behind Marvel‘s forthcoming Thunderbolts*, star Florence Pugh — herself a born and bred indie darling of Midsommar fame — described the action flick as more akin to an “A24-feeling” picture.
Speaking to Empire in a recent interview, the actress — who will reprise her role as Natasha Romanoff’s sister, Yelena, the highly trained former assassin first introduced in Black Widow — said the film, about a group of misfits not really giving the Avengers a run for their money, has an entirely different style from typical MCU fare.
“It ended up becoming this quite badass indie, A24-feeling assassin movie with Marvel superheroes,” she noted.
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Due in theaters May 2, the latest addition to the sprawling Disney-powered franchise is helmed by Jake Schreier, who shared an Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series or Anthology for directing six episodes of A24/Netflix’s hit Beef, the all-cylinders-firing rage-filled dark comedy starring Ali Wong and Steven Yeun.
“There’s a certain amount of that Beef tone in it, that does feel different,” he told the magazine. “There’s an emotional darkness that we brought to this that is resonant, but doesn’t come at the expense of comedy.”
The teaser, dropped March 7, is titled “Absolute Cinema,” referencing a meme/reaction image born out of Martin Scorsese’s words. The veteran filmmaker has been vocally critical of Marvel, having dragged the studio in the past for producing what he deems as “audiovisual entertainment” bereft of “risk.” In a New York Times essay, he defended his statement that he views those projects as “closer to theme parks than they are to movies.”
“What’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes,” he wrote, adding, “That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.”
The minute-long clip boasts captions like “From the stars of Midsommar, A Different Man, & You Hurt My Feelings,” “The writers & director of Beef,” “The cinematographer of The Green Knight,” “The production designer of Hereditary,” “The editor of Minari” and “The composers of Everything Everywhere All At Once” — all of which are A24 films.
Naturally, with a powerhouse studio and a budget of likely over $150 million (if not more), Thunderbolts* is nowhere near the definition of arthouse or independent cinema. However, Marvel’s marketing seems to indicate a new direction and tone for the movie, as audiences grapple with superhero fatigue and the company fights against somewhat lackluster box officers numbers for recent fare like Captain America: Brave New World, which received largely mixed reviews and saw a 68% drop in its second theatrical weekend.
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